Peggy Mitchell
Margaret Mitchell (nee, Martin; previously Butcher), best known as Peggy, was a long-standing central character on the BBC-TV soap opera, EastEnders. She was originally played by Jo Warne in 1991, but was recast in 1994 with actress Barbara Windsor, who played her until 2016, when the character passed away due to cancer. "GET OUTTA MY PUB!!!!" Albert Square's most notable pub may be called the Queen Victoria (or the Vic), but the ruler of that roost has been and always will be one Peggy Mitchell. She was clearly the true Queen of the pub! When someone crosses her, the petite woman would be known to utter her famous and withering catch-phrase, "Get outta my pub!" She not only ruled the roost at the Queen Vic, but she also ran Albert Square rather well. She is the mother of Phil, Grant and Samantha Mitchell, and was the head of the Mitchell family. She is also the grandmother of Ben Mitchell; Louise Mitchell; Courtney Mitchell and Ricky Mitchell. She is also the sister-in-law of Billy Mitchell (her first husband Eric and her third husband, Archie, were his brothers, and she also knew their brother, Charlie) and also was the auntie and later stepmother of fraternal twin sisters, Ronnie and Roxy Mitchell. Also making some appearances is her married sister, Sal (Anna Karen). Called Aunt Sal by all, she has a tendency to have too much gin, can become very loud, obnoxious and overbearing, and is also known for henpecking her husband Harold. Peggy was originally married to Eric Mitchell, because she was pregnant with her oldest son, Phil. She had started an affair with a man named Kevin Masters, a man who she worked for at his minicab business. She also had an affair with Eric's older brother, Archie, whom she would later marry in 2009. Over the course of the years, she would feud with many and various members of the community, but her feud with Pauline Fowler would be the most intense. This feud began when Peggy started mounting a hate campaign against her son, Mark Fowler, who had gotten HIV from his late wife, Gill. She and Mark would later be related when his sister, Michelle would give birth to Peggy's grandson, Mark, Jr. Grant was his father. It only exacerbated when she would stick her nose into the baby situation between Phil and Mark and Lisa Shaw Fowler (Lucy Benjamin). Phil had had an affair with Lisa (and through this, conceived Louise), and then it was revealed that the baby was Phil's. This led to yet another row between Pauline and Peggy. Peggy would later drop her irrational hatred towards Mark, when she revealed to him that she had breast cancer, and from then on, the two would become each other's best support system. After the death of her daughter in-law, Tiffany Mitchell (Martine McCutcheon), Mark was there at her side to support her as she mourned her. He gently reminded her that when Tiffany had arrived in the square, she had nothing (her father was useless; her mother had been absent for 12 years), but it was she (Peggy) who had provided Tiffany with home, stability and security, something that she hadn't had. Peggy then sobbed in Mark's arms, as he comforted her. Mark forgave her unconditionally and the two became close friends (with Peggy bringing a lovely wreath to his grave after his own death in 2003). Pauline wasn't anywhere near as forgiving as her oldest son, though, and the two matriarchs would continue warring with one another through the former's death in 2006. The most well-known landlady of the Vic She would become the most well-known landlady of the Vic, ruling it, as she did her family with an iron fist. She married a man named Frank Butcher (Mike Reid) and installed him as the head bartender at the pub, but he cheated on her with his former wife, Pat Evans (Pam St. Clement). Peggy would read the Dear Jane letter she received from him, and then roundly slapped them both hard, in full view of a packed pub! After he left her (Pat literally missed her ride with Frank and was left sobbing in the pouring rain), Peggy would become depressed and begin to take tranquilizers. However, on Christmas, when her vicious former stepdaughter, Janine Butcher (Charlie Brooks) began to taunt her about him leaving, Peggy would get rip-roaring drunk. She then would take a ball bat and smash up the pub. Frank would leave her in deep debt (after he and his new paramour would embezzle money), and then she would be forced to sell the license of the Vic. She would be irate at who would buy it! Her former daughter in-law, Sharon Watts! After being engaged to one Harry Slater, who would be later revealed to have been a child molester who molested his own niece, Kat Slater (Jesse Wallace), and would be the father of her daughter, thought to be sister, Zoe, and a brief reunion with Frank in Portugal, Peggy would return to Walford in 2005. During that time, Peggy would begin to feud with the new license owner of the Vic, Chrissie Watts (Tracy-Ann Oberman). Chrissie, who murdered her husband, Den Watts, decided to frame Peggy's daughter, Samantha, whom she got the license from, for it. Eventually, Peggy would extricate Sam from prison because of it, and it would be revealed that Chrissie had killed her husband; but at Den's funeral, she and Chrissie would have a huge argument in which the feisty Ms. Mitchell would knock the merry widow into Den's grave, on top of Den's casket! After a romance with one Jack Edwards, she would take up with her former brother in law, Archie. They married, but it was one of the shortest marriages in EastEnders' time on the air, as a mere few hours later, he revealed that he had been lying to his daughter, Ronnie (Samantha Womack), about her daughter's death. It was revealed that Danielle, her daughter, was alive. Upon hearing this (and hearing the vicious manner in which Archie was speaking to Ronnie), Peggy threw him out of the pub, and divorced him. In retaliation, the scheming Archie manipulated events to where Sam was back inside; the pub was taken from Peggy (he took over and evicted them all) allying himself with family arch-enemy, Janine Butcher, and then callously discarding her when she no longer was useful to him; and then, to really add insult to injury, he decided to rape Kat's cousin, Stacey Slater as well. The evil man finally got his just desserts and met his maker when the bust of Queen Victoria, the namesake of the pub, crashed on top of his fool head and killed him! Peggy and her family were suspects in his murder, until it was revealed that Stacey had killed him when he raped her. His daughter Roxy (Rita Simons) would get the pub, and she would reinstate Peggy as the landlady. Peggy and Pat, who were frenemies by this time, each stood up for a council seat in Walford (after the previous officeholder left office), and would be interviewed by a newspaper reporter named Harvey Freeman. They would eventually pull out of the election, but the randy Harvey would date both of them. They would discover his two-timing, and began to really give him the business! On a packed tour bus in London, the two women would humiliate Harvey by both slapping him, and Peggy stomping on his foot (they called it taking care of the vermin in the traditional East End fashion); then she and Pat would humiliate Harvey by the latter taking his clothes out and Peggy kicking him out. Pat would remove the sheet he was wearing and exposed him in the nude, to the merriment of everyone in the pub! She would help her granddaughter, Louise, to get in touch with her mother, Lisa. This would put her at odds with Phil, who would get raging drunk and also would begin a serious crack cocaine habit. Peggy would lead the family in locking him in the pub's living room, and boarding up the door. However, he would break free, viciously fight his mother and then he would burn down the Queen Vic in a drunken and stoned out revenge. Peggy would leave Walford because of this, and after making peace, she would leave town. Peggy would return in 2013, and would basically take up more fights, this time fighting with another Square stalwart, Dot Branning (June Brown) after finding out that Phil had been framed by her son, Nick, who had cut the brake lines on a car. Before she goes back to Portugal, she meets the new landlord of the Queen Vic, Mick Carter, the son of one of Phil's numerous paramours, Shirley Carter, who promptly uses her own catch-phrase against her and orders her out of his pub! In 2016, Peggy returns from Portugal one more time, and reveals that her breast cancer has returned and that she was dying. Her cancer had spread to her brain and was terminal. She had not long to live. She would settle her feuds with Dot, Stacey and Sharon, and Phil would take her on a boat ride on the Thames. Peggy would receive visions of her late frenemy, Pat (who had died in 2013), and she wanted to be remembered as the strong woman she was, and not as a weak woman in bed. She would take a lethal overdose of medication and died in her sleep. Phil tried to give her eulogy, but he couldn't do so, but after receiving a letter that told him the truth about what had happened to his father, he finishes the eulogy at her gravesite, and not realizing that his brother, Grant, had left a single rose at the grave. To this day, her presence is still prevalent in Albert Square and in Walford in general. The Queen Vic's current landlords, the Carters, Mick, his wife, Linda, their children, Lee, Nancy and Johnny, as well as his mother, Shirley, his aunt Tina, and his aunt Babe, as well as Stan Carter, Dean Wicks (Shirley's son by Kevin Wicks); Linda's mother, Elaine Peacock, and Lee's wife, Whitney Dean, constitute the new leading family of Walford, even though the Mitchells, Beales and Fowlers still maintain a heavy influence and presence. In the Vic, there is a picture of Peggy, put up by the Carters, as a reminder of one of the pub's most well-known landladies. When it comes to the Queen Vic, there are two landladies of fame and renown, one was Angie Watts, the other was Peggy Mitchell. Barbara's distaste at the Mark vs. Peggy feud When the character was first introduced in 1991 (a year after Grant and Phil Mitchell were introduced), the role was played by actress Jo Warne, but when the character returned in 1994, actress Barbara Windsor was brought in to play her. Barbara, a well-known actress in England, due to her appearances in the successful (and quite funny) Carry On movie comedies, wasn't at first thought to be considered in any role of EastEnders, because the producers didn't want any widely known names in the series (excepting Wendy Richard, who played Pauline), but in 1994, they rethought that stance (and since Jo Warne hadn't done that well of a job), and Barbara was cast as Peggy. She became most recognized as the petite Queen of the Queen Vic, and due to her expertise from her Carry On days, she gave Peggy a defined sense of humor. Barbara had some reservations about a few storylines. One of the hardest ones she ever had to do was the Mark Fowler AIDS storyline. In the story, Peggy had spread vicious and ignorant rumors about Mark's HIV status, (he received AIDS from his late first wife, Gill) and banned him from the Queen Vic. This angered his devoted mother, Pauline, and this began the feud between Peggy and Pauline, which lasted until the latter died in 2006. Barbara was shaken by the nastiness of Peggy in that storyline. During that time, she would pull Todd Carty (Mark) aside and would tell him that "it's only Peggy talking". She, herself, had several friends who had HIV and the storyline really sickened her. After tapings, she would go to a pub and drink. The storyline affected her so deeply that she cried. The story would end positively when Peggy and Mark would become friends, and he forgave her, after she revealed she had cancer. After Mark died, Peggy would bring a bouquet to his gravesite. Category:EastEnders characters